Mudslide: Families Grieve as Rescue Hopes Grow Dim

It was a grim day for rescue teams on Wednesday, five days after the massive mudslide. Now, the focus remains on the missing.

U.S. news

This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>> williams: good evening. this was day five of the search for the missing after that mountainside fell into a
valley below
in
washington state
. and the search felt every bit as urgent today as day one. using bulldozers and shovels, using their hands, they´re going through a
square mile
of debris. conditions are bad, and because so many of the rescuers are from there, they are fighting heartache all the way. it´s where we begin again tonight. nbc´s
miguel
almaguer remains there for us.
miguel
, good evening.

>> almaguer: brian, good evening. late-breaking news out west tonight -- the number of missing has decreased, although that number is still fluid. just upstream, the
national guard
is involved in the rescue. they call this a search, not a recovery mission, though with eight more bodies discovered, one thing is certain -- the
death toll
will rise. with 49 homes in oso buried under 20 feet of mud, today
search teams
found no sign of life. there´s been no rescue since saturday, when first responders spotted little jacob spillers wading through the mud. the 4-year-old was hoisted to safety all alone. his father, three
brothers and sisters
are still missing. jacob´s
cousin kevin
ryce flew 3,000 miles to find his family.

>> ryce: i´m here because i love my family, and i´m after them.

>> almaguer: tonight 90 people are unaccounted for. the official
death toll
now stands at 16. the stories of those who are gone are still emerging, like christina jefferds.

>> huestis: i´ve lost my mother. [ sighs ] i´ve lost my baby.

>> almaguer: natasha huestis found her mother´s body on saturday, but her 4-month-old baby, sanoah, is still missing. when do you stop searching for your baby?

>> huestis: you don´t. you don´t. never. you don´t. i will not stop.

>> almaguer: linda mcpherson was sharing a cup of coffee with her husband, gary, when the slide hit. he was washed 200 yards down the road and lived, but she did not survive.

>> kuntz: we´re grieving for our loss, because she was such a wonderful sister. she was like a rock in our family.

>> almaguer: experts say the mudslide´s debris field is 30 to 40 feet deep in spots, as tall as a four-story building. the volume -- 15 million
cubic yards
, nearly five times as much mud as there is concrete in the
hoover dam
. amid this impossible search, there are now more questions. did logging on the ridge directly above the slide play a role? today we learned of a
2010
report that warned of the exact area where the earth gave way was dangerous.

>> pennington: people knew that this is a landslide-prone area. sometimes big events just happen. and i want to understand why.

>> almaguer: those answers will come in the days ahead. for now, those leading the search are struggling to stay strong.

>> pennington: we are humbled beyond belief in this county. we have received -- it is [chuckles] [ voice breaking ] it is very humbling.

>> almaguer: for a second day in a row, it is raining here, making the search even more dangerous. by this weekend, we may have three inches of rain, making the soil here even more unstable. brian?